Ophelia's throat

dredge the river for me / a comb
through amber / no sound. her,
weedy, dripping, found needle
the wrong way pointing, a song
unwound. sweet clock, ribs
unseaming, undone stomach.
these, the feet, corset, teeth.
as for me, juniper comes closest.
no rosemary, you have
her tongue. a nun's knees,
the hydrocephalic face. testify
liars to madness, a name
for grief. you and I are the same,
dancing away, not sorry
to see her go.

***

This is the new working title for the book in development. Today I am going to get back into the habit of magazine submissions. Hideous, tedious process that it is. But it's thunderstorming outside and productivity seems like a good idea. I give myself about two hours before cabin fever sets in and I have to go do something else.

two cents from Susan B.

get my face
off your syphilitic coins & give
your secretary
a raise. did you think
it'd get me
off your back for good? I'm dead
& the daughters
are forgetting. time for a good
old-fashioned
haunting if I could get God
to send me back but
this one you sold me's got long lines
& a white beard
/ how did you do it, fist
into eternity & paint your face
on what even I
could believe?

{pre-tofurkey poems}

sat and chatted and wrote with the lovely and talented Rebecca Hart (see her show 12/8 & 12/9: www.rebeccahartproject.com) this afternoon, since the office closed early. now I will post them and then go cook rice krispies treats for the thanks-making fest tomorrow. I haven't made these in a solid decade, so we'll see how it goes.

OK, new poems. as always, I'm not sure about the titles, and all comments are welcome. nobody comments on my journal. either nobody's reading it, or I need to be more incendiary. um, trees are unnecessary. refrigeration is the source of all evil. George Bush is president.

geometry of the obvious

Betsy Ross is an overstuffed armchair.
torn spot in the cosmos, all exposed tacks
and threadbare, a given. these colors
do run, she says, lost
in history’s junkroom. I wanted
treelight sifting through lace, candlewax
warping on glass – or snow
with molasses patterns. but they
wanted geometry, symbology
of the obvious. Betsy shifts
her square feet, the plush back puffing
with each sigh. kicking up dust
with those boys was like preaching
to a wheelbarrow. where cushion
meets arm, a mouse
tucks his collapsible bones.
Betsy Ross is an overstuffed
armchair, faux needlepoint tapestry
wanting just one more tongue, once more
the traffic of buggies, of boot-clad men
who come calling well before
the war begins, want a flag sewn
under which to lie.

***

perfect, after a fashion

the zombie model wriggles in her skin,
hungry like never. the blessedly dead
offer thumbs to worms, remember
rubber pacifiers, new mother’s nipples.
implants a surprise panacea
for extinction, her zombie face wobbles,
solidifies, flashbulb. perfect! a little
superglue and the hair curls back
in godless ringlets. what posture.
posable, still for hours. the dead
are not envious, nutritious
and fertile where they lay, ashes
to ashes, no more lipstick
or shave cream, nails and hair
growing wild.

{if at first you don't}

I tried to post this four days ago but Blogger kept kicking me off. let's try again!

So I realize I've posted nothing but poems of late, no mention ofother people's work or what I'm reading. I promise to remedy this soon. Have been reading Sophie Cabot Black's "The Descent" which is difficult and heavy and gorgeous in moments of blinding sighs. I do need to analyze at least one of her poems to understand why the book holds me in spite of itself.

New goal: analyze at least one poem fromeach book I read.

Time is becoming scarcer as I start work full-time again. Grants, grants, grants. Brochure brochure brochure. Fortunately, the organization is wonderful (www.pasesetter.org) and the people are kind and interesting. But sitting for eight hours a day is killing my lower back, which had been giving me problems already. I need to buy yoga DVDs. I need to start working out again. Must find a gym near work or join the one by the apartment. Probably the latter. Last night's "Salon Propaganda" was amazing. On the topic of Art & Fear, folks were supposed to bring an object that represented fear to them.

Of course few did (aside from Ray who wore his mask into the house and for the first few hours) so I had everyone draw a picturere presenting their fear, then exchanged them and kicked off the discussion based on what each picture represented to the individual who'd received it. Few people actually addressed their drawing because we entered almost immediately into a focused and dynamic dialogue about how we balance the need to create art that reflects this violentand fear-filled society without reinforcing it. How our fears inform our art, in positive and negative ways. How there are fears that move us forward and fears that hang off our heels and hold us frozen in place.

Hm, I think I could have organized an interesting exercise based on freeze tag, illustrating fear. That's an interesting workshop idea. One of the main reasons I would love to either have such a booming could spend (paid) time developing programs and projects to explore concepts like art and fear with groups of people over the course of days instead of three hours at Lynne's house. but baby steps, baby steps.

and that's all she wrote, November 20. let's see now if this will post...

{revision is fun!}

here's a revised version of the earlier post-Long Island debacle poem (thanks Lynne for the feedback!). for those not In The Know, "Willie" is Willie Perdomo and "Anne" is Anne Sexton. brilliant poets, both. if you've not read them, hop to it pronto!

when Willie says shit

a mouth caves the length
of the classroom, teachers diving
for their red pens, purses clasping
and unclasping like so many
fat hands and the kids
dip their heads as if to say you don't know
what you're in for, unaware
Anne said bitch to the last class
without alarm or caveat but Anne
also said red sloop in the harbor, said
littleneck clams out of season, said
watercolor

and Willie says coño, son, says dios
de bendiga, mano, says word
up, lets the monster crawl out
his mouth with its brown face on,
calls a bottle fight evidence
of love or at least
what it is, proof
life goes on

2.

(you must understand)
Anne hangs herself in the back
of the classroom, tongues a gun,
(we have order to uphold)
careens a razor along
each wrist, (that street language
has no place here) muttering what
does it take to be dangerous
these days

teachers crowd the corpse, organize
a field trip from the front row
to watch

Anne says bitch bitch bitch
as they tie an orange ribbon around each
dripping wrist

in the hallway a boy is suspended
for saying fuck to a non-functioning
water fountain

Willie says shit, son, if we said
fuck you in Spanish
nobody'd know to protest
a god / damn / thing.

{new series}


please

leave me here the plastic
is cozy, my face knows the mold
I can breathe here. low
shallow breaths avoid
eye contact take her
or her I don't like
to be touched leave my hands
bound down like this the wire
wound tight to hold me
tight like this ribcage wrists ankles
yes like that tighter I'm perfect here tied
boxed no strip-search little fingers I've heard
the stories I know what's out there flat
below Ken and the dream home not a blindfold
in sight

*

please, please

that blonde bitch is crazy. have you seen
the dream home? I don't care what
Ken has or hasn't got
going on below, if he can get me out
of this box, into two bedrooms
and three solid walls, it's all good.

and the Corvette's not a bad deal, either.

*

out of the box

face it. Ken is the perfect
beard. and with feet like these
who'd suspect what goes on
in the closet when the kid's
asleep. call me lipstick
as if I had a choice, as if
it weren't permanent / shimmy out
of the sequined tube top and into
some camoflauge pants, steal a pair
of nodded-out GI Joe's boots
tape the double-Ds down
and paint this town pink.

*

to die for

have you any idea
how hard it is
to get blood out of plastic?

*

yeah, so anyway. for those following along at home: that was S&M Barbie, social climber Barbie, lesbian Barbie and serial killer Barbie. trademark 2004. now I should get some sleep.

{eddicational distress & eustress}

so earlier in the week, I spent three days teaching with Roger and Celena in a less-than-ideal circumstance -- organizer breathing down our necks with "helpful" suggestions, teachers and administrators freaking out about language but refusing to commit to any real parameters we could follow... it will be a long time before I return to Long Island.

today, I had only three people at my louderARTS workshop, but it turned into an amazing epiphanal experience; after a warm-up exercise, we read a Martin Espada poem to which they absolutely did not respond, finding it simplistic and prosaic and without purpose... until we went through it line by line and all the complexity sprang into clarity and I swear to all that is good I could see lightbulbs switching on in their faces.

I remember that moment, the first time I felt a metaphor blossom in my chest, when Ms. Nickelson presented us a poem called Valediction (by John Donne) that includes a central metaphor of a compass (the geometry kind) where the speaker is the leg that travels and the loved one the leg that stays still and pulls him always back home to center... I remember that window opening in my brain, the AHA of it. and seeing something like that tonight was gorgeous.

so anyway, here's a first draft of a poem about the above.


when Willie says shit

it's as if a mouth caved the length
of the classroom, teachers diving
for their red pens, purses clasping
and unclasping like so many
fat hands and the kids
dip their heads as if to say you don't know
what you're in for, unaware
Anne said bitch to the last class
without alarm or caveat but Anne
also said red sloop in the harbor, said
littleneck clams out of season, said watercolor
and Willie said coño, son, said dios
de bendiga, mano, said word
up, let the monster crawl out
his mouth with its own face on,
called a bottle fight evidence
of love or at least
what it is, proof
life goes on

2.

Anne hangs herself in the back
of the classroom, tongues a gun,
careens a razor along
each wrist, muttering what
does it take to be dangerous
these days

Willie says chingate, son, if I'd said
fuck you in Spanish
nobody would have known
to protest a god damn thing.

{defying Narcissus}


what Red learned from the wolf

when we met in the woods
that day it was not
the first time; the late sun
glinted grey into silver just
as I remembered those nights
he’d smoke my window free
of the intrusive moon, a shadow
with teeth, a delight.
how heavy his breath, mouth of juniper
and small things that run the woods I
never took, Mother sure
something lurked and I
all she had / left / after
I curled snug as a lie
under the down tick, alone,
running this new raw tongue
over sharpening incisors.

so that day when she said Go
and it too late to take the long
way round, I took the red
cape, scent of cinnamon and burned
sugar draped in its thick folds, warm
from the kitchen, hot basket
in my hands / I went
straight in, Mother’s eyes clouding
at my reckless.

long story short, we met
in a clearing. like I said, not
the first time. but here, his
territory, no pillow no comforter
I threatened to scream, call the men
from their woodsheds / he laughed at me.
fangs to molars a head-back jaw-cracking laugh
so I ran.

this is how it happened: he knew
where she lived. my legs nothing
to his lope, the cape catching
on low branches, all
I can hear is howling as if
he were twenty of him

I charged the house, slammed
the screen door open, he was there
already, her kerchief grotesque
on his head / red yes blood red /
he locked the door.
I knew the game, whispered code
at a cold window:
what big eyes you have
what big hands you have
what big what big teeth

the better the better to eat you with my dear

they will tell you it’s the woodsman
who saved me, leave
a woman stranded in a kitchen
rolling dough while the wolf ravages
her daughter / no. my mother
took that door with three swings
of a hatchet / I don’t know
how she knew but I swear
as he lay on that floor, pie knife
cleaving his heart, that damn wolf
was smiling.

***

for information about the workshop I'm teaching November 7, 14, and 21 on "Getting Over Yourself: writing and performing the non-autobiographical poem," email workshops@louderARTS.com.

yay!